Getting it Wrong

Someone sent me a Business Week article and asked, "What do you think?" I read it and nearly choked. The article, dated Sept 27, is a cover story called Tech's Future and is worth reading if only for the exercise it will give your eyes as you roll them over and over. It's as if someone had been in a coma for 20 years, just woke up, looked around, read a few newspapers, and wrote this article. It's unbelievable.

Okay, let's start with the basics. Desktop computers are made in China. Someone may alter them a bit in the USA and elsewhere, but, for the most part, they are all made in China by large factories that specialize in making lots of machines cheaply. And with an estimated 170 million-plus computers sold per year, the machines are commodities, so making them in China shouldn't surprise anyone. And if you made them anyplace else, you'd put yourself at a disadvantage. No surprise, right?

Well, it does seem to surprise these editors and analysts at Business Week. They seem absolutely stunned that, for example, companies like Dell don't have much market share in China itself. This is somehow a shock, part of a global change that needs a special report. The fact is, buying a Dell, or any American-branded computer for that matter, in China would be like a Virginia pig farmer buying bacon from Argentina.

We are told in this lengthy piece about how the international market with its billion new customers will become the new focus of high-tech, as though it's never been a focus of high-tech. The fact is that it's been part of the scene for over 20 years. The writers of the article call Cape Town, South Africa, and Shanghai, China, "frontiers," making these highly cosmopolitan cities sound like Cheyenne, Wyoming in 1867. Brazil, which has been high-tech for decades, is suddenly discovering high-tech, the writers propose. (I've been writing for a Brazilian computer magazine for over a decade.) According to the article, the IBM sales there have now "zoomed" past $1 billion. Zoomed? What were the sales like last year?

In the article, we learn that American tech companies are "facing stiff challenges" from service companies in India, online gaming pioneers in Korea, security outfits in Eastern Europe, and network gear makers in China. Even mighty Microsoft is vulnerable. "Open-source software, with growing support in developing countries, could stunt its growth," we're told. Hmm, the service companies have been used by American companies for years. It's called outsourcing.

The article continues to tell us that Korea has universal high-speed broadband. It has had it for years; thus, online gaming is popular there. I've been using Eastern European (AVP, Kaspersky, etc.) security software for nearly a decade. China has been the source for most low-end networking gear for almost a decade, with D-Link, Linksys, and most other SOHO makers manufacturing their gear in China or Taiwan since their inception. And the open-source movement is not taking over the world by any means, and it's a bigger threat to "mighty" Microsoft in Western Europe. In India and much of Asia, Microsoft software is simply pirated and used almost universally. I was in Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore last year and found nobody using Linux or open-source products. They all used pirated Microsoft products. In Malaysia you could openly buy disks at the mall for a dollar. This, of course, is never mentioned in the article.

The editors treat us to old bromides about the "shift of power" from desktop computers to phones, along with other specious nonsense. I hate to break it to them, but phones do not compete with computers. They are in different markets. And just because a phone can access the Internet and there are billions of phones, that doesn't mean a phone is the device of choice for browsing the Web.

I should add that this last assertion is probably what ticked me off enough to write this slam in the first place. I'm sick of hearing this phone crock from people who should know better.

I personally do not understand the point of long articles such as this, except to make Americans nervous. Believe me when I tell you that these "new" trends are not new at all. The editors even mention that IBM has been in Brazil for 87 years. Of course this is curious, since IBM wasn't really IBM until 1924. But that's just another unimportant detail, I guess.

I say these things not just because I relish blasting other publications, but it's almost as if some new teams of tech analysts have shown up to give us some new perspective, and what we get is public-relations baloney, especially about phones and the Internet. This article is yet another example of the mass media giving the public shallow analysis. It just gets worse.

John Dvorak is a columnist for PCMag.com and the host of the weekly TV video podcast CrankyGeeks. His work is licensed around the world. Previously a columnist for Forbes, Forbes Digital, PC World, Barrons, MacUser, PC/Computing, Smart Business and other magazines and newspapers. Former editor and consulting editor for Infoworld. Has appeared in the New York Times, LA Times, Philadelphia Enquirer, SF Examiner, Vancouver Sun. Was on the start-up team for CNet TV as well as ZDTV. At ZDTV (and TechTV) was host of Silicon...
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